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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skywatcher who wrote (6013)	3/16/2006 12:45:28 PM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

doesn't matter since Global warming is "irreversible". I'm looking at buying another SUV, which one should I get? oops the leaves I'm burning outside are spreading, I'll be back.

To: Skywatcher who wrote (6013)	3/17/2006 12:51:53 AM
From: average joe	Respond to of 36917

I found this neat summation of global warming in a book by Michael Chricton. "Let’s remember where we live, Kenner was saying. We live on the third planet from a medium-size sun. Our planet is five billion years old, and it has been changing constantly all during that time. The Earth is on its third atmosphere. The first atmosphere was helium and hydrogen. It dissolved early on, because the planet was so hot. Then as the planet cooled, volcanic eruptions produced a second atmosphere of steam and carbon dioxide. Later the water vapor condensed, forming the oceans that cover most of the planet. Then, around three billion years ago, some bacteria evolved to consume carbon dioxide and excrete a highly toxic gas, oxygen. Other bacteria released nitrogen. The atmospheric concentration of these gases slowly increased. Organisms that could not adapt died out. Meanwhile, the planet’s land masses, floating on huge tectonic plates, eventually came together in a configuration that interfered with the circulation of ocean currents. It began to get cold for the first time. The first ice appeared two billion years ago. And for the last seven hundred thousand years, our planet has been in a geological ice age, characterized by advancing and retreating glacial ice. No one is entirely sure why, but ice now covers the planet every hundred thousand years, with smaller advances every twenty thousand or so. The last advance was twenty thousand years ago, so we’re due for the next one. And even today, after five billion years, our planet remains amazingly active. We have five hundred volcanoes and an eruption every two weeks. Earth quakes are continuous: a million and half a year, a moderate Richter 5 quake every six hours. Tsunamis race across the Pacific Ocean every three months. Our atmosphere is as violent as the land beneath it. At any moment there are one thousand five hundred electrical storms across the planet. Eleven lightning bolts strike the ground each second. A tornado tears across the surface every six hours. And every four days a giant cyclonic storm, hundreds of miles in diameter, spins over the ocean and wreaks havoc on the land. The nasty little apes that call themselves human beings can do nothing except run and hide. For these same apes to imagine they can stabilize this atmosphere is arrogant beyond belief. They can’t control the climate. The reality is, they run from the storms." Michael Chrichton – State of Fear – p.618 - 619

To: Skywatcher who wrote (6013)	3/17/2006 7:42:42 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 36917

Bush suffers another defeat in his war on clean air and the environment. Very GOOD NEWS for all Americans that care about preserving the environment for future generations...fyi... _________________ Federal Court Unanimously Rejects Rollback of Clean Air Protections 37 minutes ago To: National Desk, Environment Reporter Contact: Jonathan Lewis, 617-624-0234 ext. 12, for the Clean Air Task Force, WASHINGTON, March 17 /U.S. Newswire/ - In a unanimous decision handed down earlier today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit struck down the Bush Administration's attempt to dramatically weaken a critical component of the Clean Air Act. The ruling -- which came in a lawsuit brought by states, local governments, and a coalition of environmental groups primarily represented by the Clean Air Task Force, Earthjustice, and the Natural Resources Defense Council -- prevents industrial polluters from taking advantage of a regulatory loophole that the Environmental Protection Agency opened in late 2003. "Today's victory is another reason to wear green this St. Patrick's Day," said Jonathan Lewis, attorney for the Clean Air Task Force. "We didn't need the luck of the Irish today to protect America's air quality because we had the law on our side." The loophole at issue would have exempted 20,000 power plants, refineries, and other industrial sources of air pollution from the statutory requirement to update their pollution controls whenever they make equipment replacements that result in increased air pollution. If the exemption had been upheld, outdated facilities across the country would not have to install pollution controls when they replace equipment -- even if the upgrade increases pollution -- as long as the cost of the replacement did not exceed twenty percent of the cost of the entire unit. The court found that such an exemption clearly violated Congress's intent, as expressed in the Clean Air Act's New Source Review (NSR) provisions. Specifically, the three judge panel ruled that the equipment replacement projects fit within the statutory category of "physical changes," and therefore are subject to regulation under NSR. Air pollution from power plants and other industrial sources is responsible for asthma attacks, respiratory disease, heart attacks, and premature death suffered by hundreds of thousand of Americans every year. The NSR program is essential to controlling these dangerous emissions. If EPA fully enforced New Source Review at coal-fired power plants, at least 5,500 premature deaths and 80,000 asthma attacks would be avoided annually. The U.S. Department of Justice is currently prosecuting power plants for violating the same NSR provisions that the court today blocked EPA's attempt to gut. The Clean Air Task Force, a member of the Clear the Air coalition, represented the Alabama Environmental Council, Clean Air Council, Group Against Smog and Pollution, Michigan Environmental Council, Ohio Environmental Council, Scenic Hudson, and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy was also represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center.